Reflections on the Intersection of Student Activism and Structural Competency Training in a New Medical School Curriculum

White Coats for Black Lives (WC4BL) is a national medical student movement that aims to affirm the role of medical professionals in combating racism and racial disparities in medicine. The WC4BL chapter at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has focused its efforts on community engagement, local and national political activism, and medical education reform. As part of the inaugural class studying under the Bridges Curriculum at the UCSF School of Medicine, five UCSF WC4BL members provide perspectives on their first year of medical education, the integration of structural competency into the curriculum, and how their involvement with WC4BL has impacted and enriched their experiences. In addition, two faculty members from the UCSF Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine who were involved in the introduction of structural competency and other content addressing racialized health and healthcare disparities describe the process of developing and implementing this new curriculum. Collectively, reflections of trainees and faculty offer a multi-perspectival understanding of the experiences and lessons learned from the introduction of structural competency curricula into medical education.